Salt Lake: The Salt Lake police have arrested two men who ran a couple of call centres in Regent Park and Alipore and allegedly duped Australians posing as representatives of a telecommunications service provider.

Ayan Srimani, 22, a resident of Regent Park, and Suresh Dutta, 20, from Behala, were picked up from their houses late on Wednesday, police said.

An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said the accused had duped their victims of more than Rs 1 crore.

The duo were picked up on the basis of a complaint of data theft lodged by Teleminds Infotech Pvt Ltd, a BPO firm in Sector V that handles customer care and tech support for an Australian company.

The BPO has alleged in the complaint, filed in September, that the Australian company had informed them that several customers had reported about money having been deducted from their accounts after getting calls from their executives.

An officer said the accused duo had stolen data from the BPO and called Australians posing as representatives of the telecom company. They would tell them that their personal computers or smartphones had been hit by a virus. They would offer to repair their gadgets for a nominal fee.

Many who agreed were then asked to install a software on their devices that gave the men remote access to the gadgets.

"Once the accused got access the machines, they directed the intended victims to a payment gateway. After the Australians keyed in their debit or credit card details, the accused would turn the screen blank and key in a higher amount," the officer said. Ayan and Suresh have been charged under IPC sections 379 (theft), 419 (cheating by impersonation) and 420 (cheating).